Two for the Price of One

Yesterday afternoon I drove over to Hadley, MA, ostensibly to hear a new student sing a very difficult Bach aria we had been working on for several weeks, and found I was attending a double header. In addition to the Bach cantata sung by the Da Camera Singers, there was a premiere of a new work by Ron Perera.

The choral group is ably directed by Sheila L. Heffernon and was assisted in the Bach by a chamber orchestra that played very well. The chorus of 40 singers performs very efficiently and is obviously well trained. They could use a few more sopranos. Especially in the first movement of the Bach, with two excellent trumpeters tooting away, I had a hard time hearing the soprano line.                      

My student, Justina Golden, sang her aria very well. It is a real gut-buster, with endless runs that went at the speed of light, which she negotiated with ease. Peter Shea, who was listed as baritone/tenor, sang very well in his two recitatives. A well-focused pleasant voice that easily covered both ranges.

I was happy to see Ron again after several years. Some time ago Jane Bryden, another student of mine, sang the leading role in his opera S at Smith College. Jane and I worked on the role while Ron was still composing the end of the opera. It was a great success. Ron studied composition with Leon Kirchner at Harvard and with Randall Thompson.

If memory serves me correctly (not always guaranteed these days) the year we landed on the Moon, in fact, that very day, John's Harvard Summer Choir sang a work of Ron's at Dartmouth College. I drove up from New Jersey with our friend Dorothy Fee for the performance. How time flies!

Part of Thompson's Frostiana was also sung on the program. Thompson has never been my favorite composer and, having once taught my choir his famous Alleluia, I vowed never to do it again. And I haven't.

Ron's new work, North Country is also based on poems of Robert Frost and explores the poetry with great imagination and beauty. I was happy to be there for the occasion.

The choir also sang Songs of Nature by Antonin Dvorak. These relatively minor works were in the same mode as the Thompson, making the program too monochromatic.

I always like to hear my students in live performance; that is where we find out if 'the curse is working': that what we have been doing in lessons is actually becoming a part of their technique. When one is changing the way one sings, one needs time to build new muscle memories. Justina is in the process of doing this. It is a very good voice and I look forward to our future work together.